Balancing Act
by Forever Written in the Stars
Summary: And through those long months, she manages to hold on as long as she can rely on the steady solidity of the beam beneath her feet.


Disclaimer: I do not own Make It or Break or any other recognizable trademarks or copyrights.

Author's Note: This is a one-shot examining Lauren's origins and background through her love of the balance beam. The intent of this one-shot is not, by any stretch, to justify Lauren's actions. I recognize she tends to do horrible things and though you can sometimes understand her reasons, understanding them doesn't justify the things she does. This one-shot is aimed at better understanding the complexities of Lauren Tanner. **Reviews and constructive criticism would be much appreciated.**

* * *

><p>She's at a press-conference, because that's what members of the United States National Team do. She's Lauren Tanner and she stands at the podium with a smile on her face, a perfect smile. She's not necessarily happy to be at this press conference, but she can fake it. She'd smile that perfect smile even if the world was falling to pieces at her feet. She stands in front of reporters as they all clamor to ask questions, as if she's someone special. One of them, a faceless blonde, somewhere in the crowd, asks how she became so good at beam.<p>

She spouts off something about how her love for the event and fabulous coaching allowed her to shine, because honestly, that's what they want to hear, and for now, she'll give them what they want, because she doesn't want to tell the truth. They don't want to hear it.

She _lies_.

Okay, she doesn't _lie_, but she certainly doesn't tell the truth, not the whole truth anyways, because the whole truth is a bit too long and complicated and convoluted to reveal in the space of a press conference. Besides, it's not really her they want to talk to anyway so she should make this short so they can talk to the people they came here for. They want_ Payson Keeler_, the girl with a comeback story for the ages, or _Kaylie Cruz_, the reigning national champion, or _Kelly Parker_, the media's darling.

No one wants _her_.

No one's _ever_ wanted her.

* * *

><p>Two days after Lauren Tanner's fifth birthday, it all falls apart. <em>Shatters<em>. _**Breaks**_. There's nothing left.

She wakes up early, no earlier than usual, but just as the sun rises over the foothills and before either one of her parents usually wakes.

She should wake to silence and a dark house, illuminated only by faint rays of sunlight. In her little mountain oasis, there should be peace, but instead she finds herself jarred awake by the sounds of screaming.

She walks down the hall to the top of the stairs and the screaming, the arguing, becomes louder and fills her ears. She can see her parents at the bottom of the stairs. She can hear them fighting, her mother's normally soft, smooth voice, rising and mutating until it sounds grating.

Then, just as quickly as it starts, the screaming stops and they're fighting in hushed whispers, and Lauren wonders if they've noticed her presence at the top of the stairs.

They haven't. They're too absorbed in each other to notice the perfect, pretty blonde girl huddled at the top of the winding staircase.

They fight quietly, in tones so hushed Lauren can't even begin to decipher their words, and if possible, the quiet, the uneasy peace that's fallen over the house as the screaming ceases replaced by sharp, hushed whispers, jars Lauren more than the screamed arguments.

Then, her mom walks out the front door, slamming it behind her, shaking the glass, and then, even the whispering stops.

* * *

><p>Leslie Tanner doesn't come back that night. The door slams and never opens.<p>

Lauren sits in the living room all day, coloring a picture for her mom, but the beautiful door with glass stained red and orange, remains steadfastly closed.

Her father stays home that day, his face stoic, his mouth drawn into a set line. Lauren doesn't notice, but his eyes hold the pain of a man who realizes that the end has come and there's no going back.

"Where's mommy? When's she coming back?" she asks her father, a five-year-old, confused and looking for answers.

"She won't be coming back," he says coolly, "She doesn't care anymore."

And that, though Lauren doesn't know it then, is the first piece of deception in the web of lies her father begins to spin around them, saving her from the truth, saving a five-year-old from a reality in which her beloved mother is a drug addict incapable of controlling herself. And after that, Steve Tanner begins to shape and direct their lives, planted on a bed of lies and half-truths, but mostly lies.

* * *

><p>The next day, her father sends her off to her gymnastics session as though her life didn't just fall apart the day before.<p>

They take a break from the requisite tumbles and cartwheels across the soft blue mats and move on to the balance beam.

Her classmates, they're scared. None of them want to set foot on the thin strip of wood hanging over a yard off the ground. They're scared of falling, even if falling means softly tumbling onto the soft blue mats beneath them, so the teacher sends Lauren up there first, because she's the most talented and tends to pick up on skills the quickest. She gently guides Lauren up onto the beam, holding Lauren's waist until she finds balance. Lauren walks and then runs across the beam without a problem, taking solace in the solid feel of the wood beneath her feet. Not once, does it give way.

The days go on, and she realizes that she's good at beam. She's good at everything gymnastics-related, but she _shines_, _**sparkles**_ on beam. Her coach is impressed, and she's seen the awed-looks on the faces of the other kids' parents as she works her magic on the beam. She's good, and because she's _that good_, her father and coach make a decision that changes her life forever: they decide that she would be better-benefited at a program with a more elite coaching staff and athletes; they decide on the Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center.

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><p>She's at the Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center. At that time, it hadn't yet become what it one day would, but it was poised to make a big entrance onto the national stage. The board had<em> just<em> managed to hire Marty Walsh, a former Olympian, as coach, and just the year before, several gymnasts had _just missed_ making the national team (close doesn't cut it in gymnastics though, so they're in need of a miracle).

"Hi, I'm Kaylie Cruz. Do you want to be friends?"

Those are the first words out of the pretty, dark-haired girl's mouth, and those words change Lauren's life, because Lauren Tanner's never really had a friend before and Kaylie's her first.

She doesn't realize how much she'll come to_ need_ Kaylie or how much Kaylie will come to _need_ her, because they're _best friends_ and _gymnasts_ which means they are the only ones who understand each other. She doesn't see how _gymnastics_ and_ boys_ and _jealousy_ will threaten to tear them apart, shred them to pieces, leaving them in ruins without a way to even begin fixing the destruction falling around their feet, but she also doesn't see that, in the end, they'll be strong enough to hold together.

* * *

><p>She and Kaylie are ridiculously talented considering their age and inexperience so Marty pays them extra attention because he has dreams too, dreams of sending gymnasts to Worlds and the Olympics and winning gold.<p>

With Kaylie and Lauren at the helm as breakout talents, the Rock's reputation begins to soar, and then Payson Keeler moves to Boulder from Minnesota and the Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center has landed itself a bona fide triple threat.

Lauren_ kills_ on beam. Kaylie _dazzles_ on floor. Payson _shines_ and _sparkles_ in just about everything, and all three of them, plus the rest of the Rock, begin to dream of London and a shining stage in 2012.

* * *

><p>And then, as they're on the verge of finally making it big just as they've dreamed of for years, it all begins to fall apart, and they wonder if the universe has it out for them, because everything begins to go wrong when they <em>need<em> it all to go right.

First, Emily Kmetko enters and steals Lauren's spotlight bumping her from her rightful spot on in the Rock's rotation. Lauren and Kaylie (_their talent, their money, their hard work_) built this place, and Lauren will be damned if this little upstart gymnast manages to steal her share of the spotlight.

Lauren leaves, taking Marty and her father with her, and it's weird, because she's never been the one to do the leaving before.

Her mom gave up on them, and Lauren stopped hoping any of the women in her father's life would ever become a mother to her. She became used to these women flitting in and out of her life just as she became accustomed to them and allowed herself to like them.

Then she comes back with Sasha Belov in tow, saving everyone at the Rock, and she's a hero, but honestly it doesn't matter because Payson and Kaylie hate her (so does the new girl, but Lauren couldn't care less). She's back with a new coach and another shot at the Rock, but somehow, all that feels empty when she thinks of her mangled friendship with Kaylie.

Kaylie lied to her, did the one thing that Kaylie swore to Lauren she'd never do, and it hurts more than Lauren would've thought possible. She had thought she'd managed to seal off her heart, protect herself from getting hurt. It turns out this time, like many other times, she's wrong.

Then she's drunk, and scared, and hurt so she does something she never should've done: she sleeps with Carter, _Kaylie's_ boyfriend. It doesn't matter that he and Kaylie were broken up (however briefly) at the time or that Lauren liked Carter first. She never should have done it, but she can't help but revel in having stolen something from Kaylie after the new girl's stolen her spotlight. The guilt weighs on her, and her only consolation is that Sasha returns her to her rightful spot in the rotation sending Emily Kmetko and her raw but undisciplined talent to the bottom.

It all comes to a head just before Nationals and they all head to their refuge, Gymnastics Camp, where it had always been just about the three of them. They bring Emily with them too, and they say things and admit things that they had left in silence for so long. It doesn't fix things, not by a longshot, but it's a step, however small.

It all goes wrong from there. Her mom never shows like she promised she would, but somehow, Lauren can't find it in her to be surprised. When was the last time she saw her mom anyways? And then, _Payson Keeler falls_. Hard, and breaks her back, seemingly robbing her of a career and a shot at Olympic gold.

They fly through chaos in the following months, Kaylie shining in her glory as the National Champion while her family breaks to pieces at the same time.

Her father and Summer break-up just as Lauren begins to think of the blonde woman as a mother.

Lauren watches Carter Anderson fight for Kaylie and wishes that_ just once_, someone would fight for _her_.

Emily gets ensnared in boy drama that Lauren has no interest in.

And through those long months, she manages to hold on as long as she can rely on the steady solidity of the beam beneath her feet.

Somehow, though, that's not the end of all the drama. It all just keeps spiraling and spiraling until it's outside of their control.

It all culminates at the trials for the World Team.

_"Sasha's gone."_

The words and the truth they don't want to admit fall off Kaylie's lips just before they're about to go on. When they most need a coach, he's gone, barred from attending the most important event of their lives, but as he always does, he arrives in the nick of time, and Lauren thinks everything's going to be _okay_ despite the emotional rollercoaster she's currently riding because of everything gymnastics-related and her mother's death.

Everything's not okay.

They watch as Emily's led off in cuffs. They watch as Kaylie falls off the beam and collapses.

Somehow though, they all make the World Team even if Emily's on probation and Kaylie's in rehab, but then Emily falls and it's irrevocable.

Lauren had known Emily couldn't last, because the discipline required to be successful in gymnastics was something Emily didn't have. She hadn't had the same focus and concentration drilled into her from a young age. She falls, and her dream is gone.

The three who remain sit around a fire and somehow, everything's right again. They've resolved to stand by each other and fight because that's all that matters. There are bumps along the road, big bumps and small, but they take Worlds like they were destined to and_ this time_, in the aftermath, everything she holds dear is still there, her friends, the beam beneath her feet, all of it.


End file.
